All posts by: Julian DeShazier

        THE CONCERN One of the most important developments in several decades is the Obama Presidential Center coming to the Southeast side of Chicago.The Obama Foundation’s ambitious plans to be “more than a library” should, for good reason, generate excitement among residents, business owners, and civic/city leaders. It should also, for good […]

University Church is inviting you this season to be present in the clutter of your life – both real and spiritual – to examine, reflect, re-purpose, and maybe even throw away some things. Some things need tossing, and some things just need our attention again. Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness and came out […]

A piece written for the Forum for Theological Education’s “Disruptors” series, which appears on the “Patheos” site. A meditation on how we might get closer to the Logos of John 1:1…minus the words. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/faithforward/2017/10/logos-without-words/

This originally appeared in the University of Chicago’s “Sightings” publication, and was picked up by “On Being.” Here it is for you to read! https://onbeing.org/blog/julian-deshazier-hip-hop-job-and-the-black-struggle-for-being/    

Imagine a loaf of fresh-baked bread: warm and soft yet filling and sustaining. Even the thought ignites your senses: it’s the best. What causes bread to possess this power over us is the living yeast which, when added to the flour and a few other simple ingredients, grows and rises into a loaf. During our […]

We are saddened to announce the death of Rev. Dr. Eugene Winkler, our beloved interim pastor from 2008-2010 and, as his son Jim put it, a “fearless advocate for social justice.” From being a founding member of Protestants for the Common Good to the very first contact that began our work with the trauma center […]

A scripture commentary featured on “On Scripture” (Odyssey Networks). Here’s a sample… “The young, black activists that want to abolish the police are as misunderstood as the rural, white activists that want to abolish equal rights for all, and both have more in common than we’d like to admit. There are reasons for this, of […]

*the following is a post from Rev. Charles Bayer, who was once pastor of UChurch and now shares his writing with people who happen to end up on his mailing list. For an 86-yo man, the consistency of dynamic thought is worth sharing, especially after this Election Season, which I have capitalized for some reason. […]

  Thank you for making this HOME.  “…Or at close at it can get,” is what Jose Juan told me about a week after we had welcomed him into Sanctuary. That was April 2016, and he was fighting to remain with his family in America. We were helping him. One reporter that came to interview […]

Because of the great success of the Covenantal Community of University Church (CCUC – the housing co-op the church owns on 61st/Woodlawn), we began to dream about what more may look like: not just a building but a ministry of housing that took seriously our church’s goals of affordable and community housing and our values […]